Saturday, May 6, 2017

Rapid population growth is the major cause of environmental degradation in the US. Thus it's accurate to say that immigration to the US, both legal and illegal, is greatest controllable cause of environmental damage-2001 Wall St. Journal op-ed by Prof. of Biology and Dir., Center for Inland Waters, San Diego State University

Rapid population growth is the major cause of accelerating environmental
degradation in the U.S.This population growth is now driven primarily
by legal immigration. Illegal immigration is a significant but secondary
driver. And, in distant third place, are births to U.S. citizens, or
rather the difference between births and deaths among citizens.Our population growth rate is now higher than that of any other
industrialized nation. Combined with our high per capita rates of
resource consumption and waste generation, this rate of population
growth occasions great environmental damage. Some of it is irreversible,
and all of it is our legacy to our children and grandchildren.

Even without open borders, the U.S. Census Bureau now predicts that the
U.S. population may exceed a billion before the end of this century if
there is no immigration reform.

It is equally misguided for Mr. Bartley to state that "There is no
realistic way to stop the resulting flow of people [across our borders]
-- certainly no way that would be acceptable to the American
conscience."

The great majority of Americans want a reduction in legal immigration
and a halt to illegal immigration -- and know full well that there are
perfectly "acceptable" means to achieve both objectives. What we do not
find "acceptable" is the kowtowing of Congress and the Executive Branch
to the powerful special interests fighting for cheap labor and cheap
causes.

With respect to legal immigration all that is needed is legislation to
reduce levels to what they were say, in the 1950s and 1960s. Why would
most Americans not find this "acceptable?"

With respect to illegal immigration, this is high only because for
decades we have offered many rewards and essentially no penalties to
those who attempt it. Those who hire illegal aliens likewise are usually
given a free pass. To solve this problem, little more is required than
to enforce laws already on the books -- laws clearly "acceptable" to the
American people.

"Two GOP legislators are introducing legislation to
let states annually import 500,000 foreign blue-collar workers and
white-collar professionalsto replace Americans who have fallen out of
the workforce and into drug addiction.The American replacement bill is needed because companies can’t
hire the employees they want amid the massive decline in the number of
Americans who are seeking work, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told an event
hosted Wednesday by the CATO Institute....

In his Wednesday statement, (Wisconsin's) Johnson spoke at length about the
“new plague [of opioid addiction] in our country,”and quoted from an
article describing the huge extent of worker drop out amid the post-2008
combination punch of recession and mass-immigration. According to the article by demographer Nichols Eberstadt:

"The collapse in work rates for U.S. adults between 2008 and 2010 was
roughly twice the amplitude of what had previously been the country’s
worst postwar recession, back in the early 1980s. In that previous steep
recession, it took America five years to re-attain the adult work rates
recorded at the start of 1980. This time, the U.S. job market has as
yet, in early 2017, scarcely begun to claw its way back up to the work
rates of 2007—much less back to the work rates from early 2000…U.S.
adult work rates never recovered entirely from the recession of
2001—much less the crash of ’08."

The subsequent “social pathologies…I would argue are being
driven by government policy,” Johnson told the hearing room, and he
cited Medicaid’s distribution of free opioids throughout much of the
country.

But “it is not going to be a government program that is going to solve” that worker drop-out problem, Johnson continued.So the new visa bill, he said, is targeted to “making sure that American businesses have the labor they need.”

The new bill is required because “we need a strong and vibrant
workforce,” said Buck, as he declined to discuss any effort to fix the
worker-dropout problem:

"I think we’ve got to deal with able-bodied individuals in this
country who are not working…we still need to address the feeling among
Americans that are workers in the country…who are not working and need
to be working.""...